


Modern Families

by jovialien



Series: Iantowood [8]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Iantowood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:05:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jovialien/pseuds/jovialien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a very random one shot that wouldn't go away, set a couple of years after the events of Heroes and Saints.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Families

“Maternity leave?” Dave echoed, his gaze dropping to Lila's pint glass and back up in confusion. “You're pregnant?”

Lila sighed and looked around their booth at the Chinese restaurant, letting her gaze drift over 'her boys' as they had dubbed themselves at her stag do, their chopsticks and forks frozen in various positions just as their faces had. She finally reached Tim, who was grinning like an axe murderer, and Lois, who just looked smug. Then again, she had known for a month already.

“No Dave, I'm not pregnant.”

“Then how come you get Maternity leave?” Richard said smoothly, breaking out of his trance to continue adding more chow mein to his plate with a fork. “Is this a duvet day kind of thing?”

Lila was tempted to bang her head against the table. For a group of guys who, by all rights, were highly intelligent and experts in their own fields (okay, maybe not Dave, but he held his own) they could be incredibly dense.

“No, _I'm_ not pregnant, Michelle is.”

“But... But she's a model!” Jimmy piped up in shock. “She models underwear!”

“You're continuing obsession with my wife's career is flattering as always-”

“You mean creepy as fuck,” Tim said.

“-but it's okay, Jimmy, models can have babies too.”

“Yes but they are usually straight,” Richard piped up, looking round for a waiter as he spoke. “As a gay couple you have two options for the mother, and you would have to have planned this and assessed the impact on her career and possible income-”

“We did, okay,” Lila snapped, focusing all her attention on the last of the sweet and sour chicken and trying to ignore the elephant in the room that was the question of why it wasn't her having the baby instead of her wife. After all, she was older, she had a fairly inactive job she could continue to do throughout pregnancy, she was the logical choice.

But sometimes logic didn't count for anything at all. 

“Look, 'Chelle's way more maternal than I am, she has that whole biological clock going off thing, and she brought it up in the first place.” Forcing a smile back onto her face to hide the guilty feeling clamping her stomach she shrugged. “Plus she wants to get out of lingerie anyway and take a career break so it's a good time for her, for us.”

“Michelle out of lingerie...” Jimmy sighed, “now that is both a fabulous image and one of the saddest things I've ever heard.”

“Still,” Dave said around a mouthful of spicy beef, “she would get maternity leave, ain't yours like paternity leave or something?” Swallowing fast, he picked up a stray piece of beef that had escaped from his mouth and put it on the side of his plate. 

“Partner leave is more accurate,” Tim said, rolling his eyes at Lila in an exasperated way and throwing her a look that clearly said 'and I'm supposed to be the kid here?' “And besides, you're supposed to say congratulations, not bitch about the correct word to use, dumbasses.” Jumping out of his seat, Tim clambered over Richard to get out then leaned over Lois to hug Lila as best he could, making her laugh. “Seriously dude, congrats! 'Chelle must be so stoked, you're gonna be moms!”

Chuckling Lila squeezed his arms and nodded as Lois finally gave up and pushed him off her lap. “Thank you hun, I knew you'd understand.”

“Hey, no, Li, we're thrilled, aren't we?” Dave said quickly, poking Jimmy and Richard to get their enthusiastic, if late, agreement. “Just, you know, a little-”

“Surprised,” Richard offered.

“Stunned,” Dave confirmed.

“Bummed 'Chelle's gonna lose her figure,” Jimmy sighed, “and I'm gonna have to get off to some random model I have no chance of getting with now.” A wave of groans ran around the table and a barrage of soggy carrot roses from the warm food trays headed towards him, making him duck and try to fend them off with his chopsticks.

“Like you had a chance with her before,” Lila scoffed.

“You can be such a pig,” Lois said, shaking her head in despair even as Tim looked at her shrewdly.

“You knew!” he said, pointing at her. “You already knew!”

“Of course I knew,” Lois said in mock outrage but unable to suppress a grin. “I'm office manager, I know everything.”

“No one knows everything,” Tim said sagely then reconsidered. “Maybe Ianto comes close though.”

“So who's the father?” Richard asked. “I'm assuming you didn't go for some sperm bank loser who probably wanted the money to buy drugs, not with such a healthy supply of intelligent and physically impressive specimens in your own company. Dave excluded of course,” he added, as Dave flipped him off.

Lila snorted into her drink even as Lois laughed out loud. “Well if it wasn't any of you young studs with all your charm, wit, maturity-”

“Homosexuality,” Tim added, raising his glass and grinning.

“Thank you Tim, but seriously, if not you then who would a girl possibly ask?”

“Was it Big?” Tim asked with a delighted and hopeful look on his face. “He'd be a great daddy, and you'd get a free uncle too, Sammy is fab with kids, and they both have this whole amazing looks package going on, which would make for gorgeous babies-”

“No, I don't want their babies! Although I'm starting you think _you_ do,” Lila added with a grin, watching as Tim flushed a little.

“Seriously Lila,” Dave said, leaning forwards. “You can tell us.”

Folding her arms, Lila shrugged. “Guys, seriously, we used a sperm donor from a bank, less legal hassles, I get my name on the birth certificate, all safely screened, it's just easier.”

“Oh.” Tim looked almost disappointed. “Still, that's cool and all we meant was, if you'd asked us, any of us, I mean, we'd do it for you in a second, right guys?”

“Yeah, some of us would even last long enough to put in a whole five minutes for you,” Dave said, waving his chopsticks around.

“Hey, I'd be prepared to do it the all natural way with 'Chelle if you asked, as many times as it took, I'd make that sacrifice for you-” Jimmy ducked as more food headed his way before successfully lunging up and grabbing a thrown prawn cracker in his mouth to a muffled cheer.

“I think what Tim meant,” Richard said in his vaguely professorial way, as though clarifying a garbled answer from a student, “was that if you ever needed, or indeed need, anything from us, we would, and always will be, there for you.”

“We're family,” Tim nodded, and held up his glass in a toast. “To family.”

“To family,” they chorused, clinking their glasses and taking a sip before digging back into the food again.

“So,” Jimmy asked, grabbing the last of the spare ribs. “How'd Ianto take the news?”

Lila smiled in that enigmatic way that was somehow common with expectant mothers everywhere and shrugged. “He's very happy for us.”

Happy, of course, was an understatement.

********************************

**Three months earlier...**

“This,” Ianto moaned quietly, his head in his hands as he perched on the edge of the hotel bed, “has got to be the weirdest thing I've ever done.”

“Weirder than stealing the Olympic torch from Lord Coe himself?” Tom Milligan chuckled as he checked everything they was laid out on the bedside table and easily accessible.

“Weirder than trying to interview a young man with a gaping hole in his head and his brains all exposed and just asking to be prodded?” Jack said.

“Whilst resisting the urge to keep snapping your fingers to make it open and close.”

“Or weirder than the interspecies mating rights of the Dilcorons?”

Ianto looked up sharply, his face torn between disgust and anger as he shifted to ball his fists against the edge of the bed. “That wasn't me, it was Jimmy.”

“Yeah, but we still had to watch,” Jack leered, laughing at Ianto's anger. “Oh come on, it brings new meaning to taking one for the team.”

“I still have nightmares about that one,” Tom admitted, shuddering.

“You're supposed to be here to help me with this, not make it worse,” Ianto hissed before flopping back onto the bed, his t-shirt riding up to show off his stomach, the faint lines of muscles peeking through his skin above his loose fitting trousers.

“Look, Ianto,” Tom said quickly, raising his hands, “if you've changed your mind, or want to delay it, that's cool, I'll go tell the girls and we'll think again-”

“No, I'm fine, Michelle is ready, she's the one to worry about, I'm just... This is a big thing,” Ianto shrugged, “and knocking up the staff is more Jack's area of expertise than mine.”

“One time!” Jack cried indignantly.

“And I'll bet it didn't involve a plastic cup.” Ianto looked at the tub on the bedside table of the hotel room.

“Only if I was a really, really, bad boy,” Jack muttered under his breath.

“I just don't like people, especially my friends and colleagues, people I have to work with, knowing when I'm... You know. It's like getting caught by your parents or something.” Ianto growled and looked like he was going to die of embarrassment.

“Wow...” Jack breathed softly, his eyes fixed on Ianto's face.

“What?”

“That look, that... shyness, I haven't seen that in a long, long time,” Jack said, almost stalking his way across the two steps it took him to reach Ianto, before dropping to his knees in front of him. “I though I'd teased that out of you a long time ago.”

“John may have helped,” Ianto remarked drily, but with a small smile playing over his lips as he sat up again, watching Jack's hands slide up his thighs.

“Did I ever tell you how incredibly hot you look when you're all cute and embarrassed like that?”

“You may have mentioned it once or twice...” 

As Jack leaned up to kiss Ianto, Tom cast one last look over the supplies then backed towards the door, grabbing the do not disturb sign on the way out and hanging it over the handle.

A loud groan that he almost imagined he could feel through the door chased him the rest of the way out and he hurried back to the girls' room to await Jack and his special delivery.

He just hoped Jack wouldn't get carried away and swallow it by mistake...


End file.
